Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Streets of Bakersfield



Last Saturday, I took a break from busking down at St. Lawrence Market to talk to an old friend of mine who is a vendor there. The conversation was about music, and I mentioned Hotwalker by Tom Russell, which has a great tune called Grapevine, that embodies the old Bakersfield country & western sound. My friend said she used to live in Bakersfield, and some of her family had come up from Oklahoma, and they listened to that Bakersfield sound, Merle Haggard and the late great Buck Owens. I suspect that a lot of people who grew up in the generation that only knew Buck Owens from Hee Haw have no idea how good he really was in his heyday with The Buckeroos. Here is Streets of Bakersfield by Buck Owens for everyone out there who is saying, "just what the hell is country & western, anyway?".

6 comments:

mister anchovy said...

damn it all to hell and back, the mp3 file somehow or other got cut off well into the song...sorry about that - I'll post it again sometime down the road when I figure out what the problem was.

Miss Cellania said...

Kudos anyway to you for helping to educate anyone at all on the rich history of REAL country music!

WebGuy said...

Nice post. I just came back from Bakersfield, visiting my Dad, and I'll tell you, that city is proud of Buck Owens and what he accomplished over his life. And deservedly so.

mister anchovy said...

Buck Owens' music had an edge to it that I really love - that high rockin twang....I'm like a fiend with his dope when it comes to that sound.

Candy Minx said...

Isn't that interesting and I never would of thought about thinking of the roots of Hee Haw. I am surprised there hasn't been a new version of that program made lately. Um, I was not a fan of that show though...sorry.

mister anchovy said...

The fact that Buck Owens was on Hee Haw is just a sad reality that I can't begin to explain. The Bakersfield sound though, that transplanted Okie country & western was really something special.